


When the stars are the only things we share

by thedoctordanceswithrose



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, hospital au, only for part of it though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 12:31:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3768592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedoctordanceswithrose/pseuds/thedoctordanceswithrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She folds her legs beneath her and spreads the map out in front of her. She places two of her fingers down and walks them across paper roads until they reach the edge of an ocean she can’t hear. Her eyes close as she moves a finger forward, imagining cold water licking at her toes. She’s never been to the ocean in her life, but she sees the waves lapping at her ankles projected on her eyelids and there’s nobody around and it’s so quiet, but she hears the waves and it’s so so loud.</p><p>She loves it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the stars are the only things we share

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was supposed to be a secret santa fic for tenshair on tumblr but I absolutely suck and life and school got in the way and…I really wanted this to be good. This is a cancer patients au and although nobody dies, it is heavy so if anything like that triggers you, please don’t read. I’m basing all of this off of my own experiences, but much of this is based off memories from some years ago so if anything is inaccurate, forgive me. I tried to stick to what I know, which made this very different for me to write so..hope you enjoy. Title from Atlas Hands by Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

**One**

Rose turns over in her bed with a huff of frustration, wincing a bit as she moves too fast and the IV needle in her arm yanks slightly under the tape holding it there. She levers herself up a little on her arm to look over the handrail on the bed and peer through the darkness. She sees her mum asleep on the air mattress on the floor, a soft familiar wave of relief rolling through her. She thinks about how weird it is someone can look so tired in their sleep, and not for the first time Rose worries about her mum. Someone should. She thinks her dad probably would have.

Yeah, Rose realizes why she should be more worried about herself–and she is, obviously–she’s twelve and she has cancer so that’s kind of a definite thing, but still, she and her mum take care of each other. They always have. Not everything has to change.

She sees soft light starting to poke around the edges of the shade pulled down the window and sighs. She hasn’t been to sleep and at this point, she almost hopes she doesn’t. Instead, she sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed. She braces herself on the edge before dropping to the cold tile floor and begins rooting around under her mattress, tongue caught in her teeth. Her fingers close around what she’s looking for–her map–and she smiles, climbing carefully back onto the bed.  

She folds her legs beneath her and spreads the map out in front of her. She places two of her fingers down and walks them across paper roads until they reach the edge of an ocean she can’t hear. Her eyes close as she moves a finger forward, imagining cold water licking at her toes. She’s never been to the ocean in her life, but she sees the waves lapping at her ankles projected on her eyelids and there’s nobody around and it’s so quiet, but she hears the waves and it’s so so loud.

She loves it.

Something settles in her chest as she leans back on her pillow, keeping her eyes closed and her hand clasped around her map and it’s the only thing that’s real because she’s not  _here_ , she’s traveling–and running and swimming and her heart is racing because she’s excited, not scared, and she’s so  _safe_.

And when she finally falls asleep, she’s not on her bed, she’s floating in the ocean so far away and it’s kind of cold and she has goosebumps, and the sky is so blue and she wonders if it’s bluer than the water tickling her ears and her tongue darts out to wet her lips and she can taste the salt that’s been filling her lungs.

It tastes like being alive.

**… … …**

The lights flicker on too bright and too sudden and Rose is blinking spots from her eyes as a crew of doctors and nurses crash into the room like a tidal wave knocking her off balance. Someone rips the sheets off of her and she’s suddenly freezing as they press something cold to her chest. Rose looks down at the stethoscope over her heart and wonders how that determines anything when her heart is racing like this.

The nurse above her says “good morning” and Rose kind of wants to yell at her and everyone else because she really wants to sleep, but she feels like she’s drowning; flashes of white coats and clipboards and lots of glances at watches and people are talking quickly, but none of it makes any sense, but she knows it’s bad, so she’s kind of glad it doesn’t, and her mum is talking to a doctor and she looks so  _exhausted_ and why does it all have to be so  _loud_?

The nurse is taking her blood pressure now and everyone is bustling around and there’s charts and beeps and it’s all about her, but she’s never felt so invisible in her life.

She looks down at her hand and realizes her map is missing and her eyes go wide and flit around the room, but she catches sight of her mum again who gives her a small smile and Rose knows she tucked it back under the mattress for her.

“Martha will be in in a minute, Ms. Tyler,” one of the doctors says to her mum. He sort of looks around the room for a second with his frantic, tired eyes and gives Rose a tight smile before leaving, and everyone but the nurse by her bed follows him. She finishes checking her vitals and pulls the sheets gently back over Rose’s body before giving her a small smile and leaving the room as well.

Rose watches Jackie sigh and walk over to turn the lights back off. Everything instantly seems a lot quieter and she immediately feels a lot better than she did a minute ago. Her mum returns to her usual spot in the chair right by Rose’s bed and grabs Rose’s hand.

“How you doin’ today, love?”

She tries to smile. “Tired.”

Jackie begins running her fingers through Rose’s hair and the effect is almost immediate as Rose’s eyes begin to droop. “You can go back to sleep as soon as Martha’s done, sweetheart.”

She nods and wonders briefly if she can fall back asleep before Martha even gets here, but the door opens the next moment.

“Hello, Rose,” Martha says with a kind smile.

“Hi, Martha.” Rose smiles back. She likes Martha a lot. Martha’s always very gentle and she makes sure to be quiet when she comes in to check on Rose and Jackie is sleeping. They talk sometimes and Rose suspects that Martha checks on her extra times during the day, and sometimes Martha sneaks her a cherry popsicle. She’s not a doctor yet, Rose knows, but she’s pretty sure she’s going to be a great one.

Rose traces her fingers across her chest as Martha readies a new needle, knowing it’s about to go in the port she can feel under her skin. It always feels big, even though she knows it’s so tiny–around the size of a quarter. She guesses that’s why the nurses miss it sometimes when they go to stick the needle in. Martha never misses.

Rose crinkles her nose at the smell of the alcohol Martha rubs on her skin to clean it. She tenses slightly as Martha holds the needle in place as she feels around for the port. Martha smiles at her. “So, are you feeling up to art time today, Rose?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Someone new is coming today.”

“Really?” Rose asks, perking up a little. She loves meeting new people.

“Yes, I’m about to go see him, actually, right after you.”

Rose feels a slight pinch and looks down. Yep. Never misses. She relaxes. “What’s his name?”

“John, I think.”

“Is he nice?”

“Seems so.” Martha glances up at her, a grin playing around her lips. “I think he could use a friend, though. He’s pretty quiet.”

Rose nods, glancing at the tube steadily filling up with her blood. It’s weird how she used to think the blood would look so much lighter than that. It’s probably weirder she doesn’t even get freaked out anymore.  “Yeah. I’ll probably go.”

**… … …**

Rose walks into the art room and looks around, a soft smile on her face as she waves at some kids she recognizes. She definitely hasn’t talked to all of them, but she spots the new kid Martha was talking about almost right away. He’s sitting in a corner by himself and she wonders if anyone else has tried talking to him yet. Some of the kids here like to be left alone, and he looks kind of like he might be one of those so she hesitates, chewing on her bottom lip for a minute, before she walks up to him slowly.

He doesn’t look up until she’s right in front of the table he’s sitting at. She smiles tentatively. He only glances at her briefly though, before looking down again and fiddling with the colored pencils in his hands. She coughs a little to make him look up again. He doesn’t. She shuffles her feet, feeling really awkward, and says quietly, “Hey.”

There’s a beat of silence before he mumbles a soft “hello” seemingly directed at the paper in front of him.

She cocks her head to the side, considering him for a moment, before pulling out the chair across from him at the table and sitting down. She takes in the glasses perched on his nose and the messy hair sticking up wildly in all directions and has a thought that makes her smile.

“Okay, so what’s your favorite Hogwarts house?”

She sees his lips twitch and she bites her lip to hide her own smile. She’s pretty sure he’s about to answer her question when a hand lands softly on her shoulder and she looks up, a smile breaking out across her face as she sees another one of her favorite people at the hospital: Sarah Jane.

She squeezes Rose’s shoulder briefly before laying a sheet of paper in front of her. “Hello, Rose,” she says gently. Rose loves this about her; everything is so soft and gentle and kind, but not in the way a lot of other people are, where you can tell they’re only acting like this because they’re talking to someone sick. She doesn’t know for sure obviously, but she feels like Sarah Jane is like this with everyone, and it’s amazing. It’s gentle, but it’s genuine.

“Hi, Sarah,” Rose greets her. “What are we doing today?”

Sarah Jane drops some coloured pencils in front of her. “No crafts today, I’m afraid. Just drawing. We didn’t have enough supplies for what I had planned.” She smiles at that. “Lots of people showed up today.” She looks like she’s about to say something else when someone calls to her from across the room. She steps back, but nods at John and looks at Rose meaningfully.

 _I know_ , Rose mouths, turning back to face him and trying to figure out what to say next. She looks down at the paper in front of her and sees the words:  **‘draw what you want to be’**  at the top by the line for her name. She tries to peek at his drawing, which he’s currently coloring in with a blue colored pencil, and is about to ask him what it is when he suddenly speaks up.

“Gryffindor,” he says, and Rose’s head shoots up, but he’s still looking down. She nods with satisfaction, about to point out her observations of his similarities to Harry Potter when he finally looks at her.

“Wellllll,” he says, and he draws it out in a way that makes her smile grow wide. “My  _favorite_ is Gryffindor, but, technically, according to several tests I’m a textbook Ravenclaw.”

Rose sizes him up for moment, pursing her lips. “I guess I could see that. Your glasses make you look really smart.”

He shoots her a crooked grin, but it disappears rather quickly before he goes back to his drawing.

Rose frowns slightly. “I’m Rose,” she offers.

“Nice to meet you, Rose.”

She waits for a minute, but he doesn’t introduce himself. She frowns. “Aren’t you going to tell me your name?”

“I don’t like my name,” he answers, poking his tongue out as he adds something to his picture.

 _Okay, so he’s kinda weird_ , Rose thinks. She shrugs. “What do you wanna be called, then?”

His hand stills against the paper and she’s pretty sure she sees him swallow a couple times before he finally answers her. “Doctor. I like being called Doctor.”

“Just ‘Doctor?’”

He looks up at her again and nods. There’s a nervous look in his eyes that she wonders about and even though she’s pretty sure he’s probably a couple years older than her, it makes him seem a lot younger right then.

So she smiles. “Okay.”

He seems to relax a bit and he goes back to drawing. “So what house are you in, Rose?”

“Gryffindor,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Thought so,” he answers, nodding.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He waves his hands vaguely. “You just have that whole Gryffindor… _thing_ going on.”

Rose squints at him. “I…think that’s a compliment?”

He just smiles, so she nods at his paper. “So what are you drawing, then?”

“A spaceship.”

Rose glances down at her paper to make sure she read the instructions right and, yeah, she did, so she frowns. “Why’d you draw a spaceship?”

He shrugs, continuing to color it in with what looks like very careful detail. “Why not?”

“Well, you can’t  _be_ a spaceship.”

“Alright, then, I’m  _in_ the spaceship.”

“But it’s like a blue…box thing.”

“Yep,” he says nodding.

“…. _why_ does it look like that?”

“It’s a disguise, obviously! You can’t just leave a spaceship parked on street corners,” he answers like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

She laughs and shakes her head slightly. “Okay,” she repeats.

Rose looks down at her paper, furrowing her brow as she decides what to draw.

**Draw what you want to be.**

She knows it probably means what she wants to be when she grows up, but that seems too far away–or not far enough anymore, she’s not really sure, and it makes her think about a lot of stuff that makes the room suddenly feel too small–like it doesn’t have enough air for her lungs and forms a pit in her stomach. She closes her eyes and she takes in a breath, and she starts thinking about windows.

There’s millions of them here.

The big windows in the lobby where the whole room gets most of its light from the sky outside and you can see the big fountain out front. Then there’s the windows in the front hallway all lined up with the shades on the top half. The ones that paint little patterns on her skin whenever they roll her past them in her chair. Windows that get warm all day and burn her fingers a little when she trails them across the metal sills.

And doors.

Doors out front that people walk out of all the time. Doors that she’s pretty sure she remembers squeaking loudly as they slid back and forth. The kind with the sensors in front of them that she used to run up and jump on to make them open before anyone else could. Doors that she can’t really remember seeing that clearly because she was in and out of consciousness when they’d brought her in after collapsing in the bathroom at home months ago.

Windows and doors that open.

And she can leave. She’s  _going to_   _leave_.

Rose exhales and looks down at her paper. Her hands are shaking and she reaches forward blindly to grab a colored pencil, if only to have something solid in her hand. She starts scribbling on the paper before she’s even paying attention to what she’s drawing–she’s not even sure what color she has–when John clears his throat. She looks up at him and meets his questioning gaze.

“What are  _you_ drawing?”

She breathes out again; looks at the pencil. Brown. She has brown, and the marks she’s made on the page look sorta like legs. Maybe. If she squints.

“I dunno, yet,” she answers with a frown. “Ask me in like ten minutes.”

He nods and she goes back to her drawing.  _Right_ ,  _so_ ,  _legs_ , she thinks. She tries to shape them a bit more. Strong legs. Legs to run on and keep going for as long as she wants. But it’d be so much better if she could just keep running until she’s a million miles away and never have to look back at a single thing. Never have to see all these things that  _hurt_ so much along with all the things she  _feels_ that hurt so much and she won’t remember what a needle feels like when it goes in wrong and she won’t have to see the way her mum crumbles in on herself just a little bit more every time she talks to a doctor and know she can’t do  _anything_ to help her because she can’t even help herself. She won’t have to think about how much she hates what the hospital smells like and how they all seem to smell that way and she won’t have to feel so afraid all the time–of the air and people and her own body and she’ll actually be something strong.

“That’s really good.” Rose blinks, looking up at him in confusion for a moment before following his gaze back to her paper. “But if you can be a wolf, than I can definitely be a spaceship,” he adds with a grin.

It gives her a warm sort of floating feeling in her chest and she smiles back, tapping her finger against the giant wolf she’s drawn. “Well, at least wolves are alive.”

“Who says my spaceship isn’t alive?!” he asks indignantly.

She laughs. “You’re really weird.”

His smile falters a little. “Good weird or bad weird?”

“Definitely good,” she says, nodding at the pile of colored pencils between them. “Now, hand me that yellow one. If you get to be some weird, living spaceship, I’m gonna have some powers or something.”

**… … …**

Rose rolls her eyes as she puts the remote control down after making the rounds through all the channels for the fifth time. There’s never anything good on at 3am. She’ll have to wait at least another hour. She lays back for a minute and closes her eyes, but she’s not really tired, so after a few minutes of tossing and turning, she sits up and scoots to the edge of her bed. She’s kinda hungry, but she’s definitely not going to wake her mum up. She taps her finger against her mattress for a minute, debating, before she finally slides out of bed and grabs onto her IV stand for support–she can walk still, but she’s pretty wobbly–before opening the door and slipping as silently as she can out of the room. She really wants a cherry popsicle.

She makes her way to the fridge where she knows they’re kept, but as she pads past one of the rooms, she hears a noise and stops. This is a hospital, so it’s not like it’s ever exactly totally quiet in here, but that room’s been empty for a while and the cries she hears coming from inside it are new. She hesitates for a beat, then changes direction, heading towards the door.

She leans her head against the surface and wraps her fingers around the door handle. She can only hear soft crying and sniffling, but no talking, so she opens the door as slowly and silently as she can and peeks around.

The crying stops abruptly and the boy in bed shifts immediately, sitting up and wiping at his eyes.

Rose’s eyes widen a little as the light from the hallway casts on the figure in bed. “Doctor?”

“Rose?” His voice croaks a little and it makes her heart sort of hurt. She nods and his shoulders relax a little.

Her eyes dart around the room briefly and she realizes it’s empty except for him. “Can…Can I come in?” she asks.

He seems to hesitate for a second, but nods. Rose slips inside the room, closing the door behind her with a soft  _click_  and pauses beside his bed. When he scoots back against his pillow and points to the foot of his bed, she clambers up carefully, using the blanket on top to pull her up. His bed is higher than hers.

She sits cross-legged in front of him and he mirrors her position. He won’t really look at her, so Rose looks away and takes a minute to really take in his room, so he can run his hands over his face quickly to hide any traces of crying, and she realizes how empty it is.

Most of the kids she’s met have a parent or something here with them most of the time, but there’s no trace in his room that anyone ever comes here. It always makes her a little angry that some parents just drop their kids off here and hardly come see them, and it looks like he’s one of them. Rose could never do this without her mum.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks. She shakes her head. “Me neither,” he says, blowing out a puff of air and running a hand through his hair tiredly. It’s sticking up now even more than it was before and she smiles a little. He doesn’t have his glasses on now though, she notices. His pajama shirt is a little askew and she notices the scar visible on his chest that looks like hers.  

She points to it. “You got your port in?”

He looks down, frowning slightly. “Yeah. Did you?”

“Yeah,” she says pushing her shirt down a little to trace it with her fingers. “It’s sorta weird, yeah? ‘Cos it feels kinda big, but it’s not.” He doesn’t answer and he’s just looking at her with an expression she can’t figure out so she fiddles nervously with the quilt beneath her. “Did you see what it looks like?” she prompts.

He shakes his head.

She hesitates, biting her lip before grabbing his hand and turning it upwards. She traces the shape on his palm. “It looks kinda like a spaceship. A regular one, anyway. Not so much like yours.”

That makes him smile.

“So why are you up, Rose?” he finally asks.

“I was hungry,” she admits, looking down with a shy smile.

He cocks his head to the side. “You know, I am too.” He frowns. “I don’t have any food, though.”

“Well,” Rose says, glancing up at him slyly, “I was gonna go get a popsicle from the fridge. Not really supposed to do that, but…I didn’t really eat much dinner, so…do you wanna come?”

He grins. “Oh yes!” he says nodding enthusiastically. He wraps the hand she’s still holding around hers and hops down from the bed before helping her do the same. He opens the door and gestures for her to go ahead. “Lead the way, Rose.”

She leads him by the hand through the hallways, going a very specific route to avoid the nurses, she explains, and he raises his eyebrows at her. “How often do you do this?”

She shrugs. “Often enough.” She flashes him a smile. “Nice to have someone with me, though.” She presses a finger to her lips when they reach the big freezer in the kitchen. He shoves his IV stand out of the way and puts his hands on the door, but she slaps them away.

“You have to go slow,” she whispers. “It squeaks really loudly.”

He nods, placing his hands back on it and helping her lift the top open. It squeaks a little bit, anyway, but not enough to attract any attention. He reaches for a grape popsicle and Rose grabs a cherry, leaving the top open since she’ll probably get a second one.

They sit back against the freezer and start eating. They both hum contentedly at the first bite and look at each other in surprise, before they start laughing. When they settle down, Rose glances at him shyly. “Have you been in hospital before?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Have you?”

She nods. “A few times. Not this one though.”

He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but then frowns, seeming to change his mind and closes it before asking, “What have you got?”

“Leukemia.”

“Me too.”

She turns her popsicle sideways, keeping her eyes trained on it as she asks carefully, “Do your parents ever stay here?”

He stiffens beside her and she sees his adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “No.”

She furrows her brow as she tries to sneak a glance at his face. And yeah, he looks kinda like everyone else does when they’re new–kinda angry, a little shy, and really scared, but there’s something else in his expression that she’s seen before. In some ways it’s worse than the other stuff. Her heart sinks because she was right before.

He’s alone.

She kinda wants to ask him about it, but he probably doesn’t want her to so she searches for something else to talk about. She nudges his leg with her own.

“What do you want to do most when you get better?”

He looks at her, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh. Erm.” He squints, holding up his popsicle. “Get some real food, for starters.”

She laughs. “That’d be good, yeah. I do miss that.”

“Mostly though…” He stops, sighing and looking down at her, his expression turning more serious. His eyes flit between hers and he looks a little nervous before continuing, “I miss being outside. I mean, I haven’t been here that long but…” He shrugs, “I miss it already.”

“Me too.”

He leans his head back against the freezer and sighs. “I miss the stars a lot. Sometimes it seems like…they’re not there anymore. I wouldn’t know if they were.”

“Well,” she says, the corners of her mouth turning up, “you have a spaceship. There’s bound to be stars somewhere.”

He chuckles quietly. “Yeah.”

Rose stands up to grab two more popsicles and when she sits back down he’s fiddling with his hair and looking thoughtful.

“What?” Rose asks, handing him his popsicle.

He takes his hands out of his hair, looking embarrassed. “I-I know I should be really worried about feeling all sick from the chemo. And I am. But….I’m actually quite worried about my hair falling out.”

Rose cocks her head to the side, sucking the popsicle into her mouth momentarily before setting it down on the wrapper. She sits on her knees to reach forward and pull as much of his hair back as she can, her hands covering his hairline. Her tongue pokes out of the side of her mouth as she squints at him.

“I think you can pull off bald.”

He laughs, his brown eyes twinkling as they meet hers. “Yeah?”

“Mhm.” She sits back. “And even if not, it’ll grow back. Maybe even a different color.”

He scoffs. “I hope not. I like the brown. Although…I wouldn’t mind being ginger. I’ve always wanted to be ginger.”

Rose giggles.

“What?!”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t think I’d look good as a ginger? I can pull off bald but I can’t pull of ginger?! That’s ridiculous.”

She just laughs and shakes her head at him.

“Did you lose yours?” he asks. 

“Yeah.” She pulls a strand between her fingers. “It looks like it always did.” She frowns. “A bit thinner, though. I think I’m gonna dye it blonde when it grows more.”

“That would look nice.” He coughs. “I mean, you look nice now. You’d just–change…change can be good and blonde would be…uhm…change,” he finishes lamely, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Rose rolls her eyes, finishing off the last bit of popsicle and crumpling up her wrapper, and yawns. “Well, Doctor, I should go to bed.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He says, finishing off his own popsicle. He sounds kind of disappointed, which actually makes Rose feel sort of light and happy. She hasn’t really spent that much time with any other kids at the hospital and she never sees her friends from school anymore, so the fact she might have made a new friend is pretty exciting.

“I can come see you tomorrow?” she offers, standing up.

He grins. “Oh! Yeah we should…we should do this again tomorrow.” He stands up, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little bit. He moves his hands around kind of haphazardly like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them and so he settles his arm on the lid of the freezer, his eyes going wide when it starts to close.

Rose rushes forward to grab the lid, but it’s too late and the freezer shuts with an extremely loud squeaking of rusty hinges and an enormous thud.

They look at each other in silent horror for a minute before they hear a voice nearby say, “ _What_ was that?!”

He places his hand on his IV pole and grabs her hand with his other one. “Run!”

They round the corner, but only make it about five feet down the hallway before Rose is saying, “Stop, stop, stop” because she definitely can’t run. She’s leaning pretty heavily on her pole and breathing hard as she groans in annoyance at herself.

He looks at her helplessly as they hear footsteps coming closer. Rose just lets go of his hand and places a foot on two of the spokes of her IV pole and motions for him to do the same. She uses her other foot to skate along the floor and jerks her head for him to follow.

She’s a lot faster this way and she rounds the corner to their hallway just a little too quickly, spotting Martha and another nurse at the other end of it. Martha catches sight of her and her eyes widen. Rose shakes her head and gives her a pleading look. Martha sighs, but quickly turns around to say something to distract the other nurse and motions behind her back for them to go to the left.

“Doctor, go back, go back, go back,” Rose hisses, swinging back around the corner just as he’s coming to it.

He backtracks quickly, nearly tripping over his IV as he tries to turn it around, and she almost laughs out loud, feeling excitement thrumming in her veins as the ridiculous chaos of the moment hits her. She hasn’t had this much fun in ages. She throws a wide grin over her shoulder as she passes him, silently daring him to a race to the end of this hallway. He smiles mischievously and speeds up.

She just barely beats him and he makes an indignant noise before she claps a hand over his mouth.

 _Sorry_ , he mouths when she lets go.

She just smiles and presses a finger to her lips as she peers around the corner. Martha and the other nurse are nowhere to be seen, so she waves him on and he follows her back to her door. They slump against the wall, panting a little, before looking at each other and breaking out in silent giggles.

“Well, Doctor,” she says, pushing herself off the wall after she catches her breath, “I’m going to bed. That was fun, though.”

He grins. “Yeah, it was. See you tomorrow?”

She bites her lip, leaning forward to wrap him in a quick one-armed hug. She steps back, placing her hand on the doorknob. “Not if I see you first.”

She catches his smile before she closes the door and a smile of her own forms on her lips as she hears him skate past. She turns back towards her bed, taking a deep breath as she feels the full force of her tiredness hit her at once. It takes her a few tries to get into bed, but when she finally does and she lays back and closes her eyes, she’s still smiling.

**… … …**

They spend the next several nights in much the same way, though they don’t end up having to run every time. They do a little bit, anyway.

It becomes her favorite part of each day and she spends each one waiting for the sun to go down and her mum to fall asleep. She slips out of her room and meets him and they go walking around the hospital, sometimes to get popsicles, sometimes to the art room, other times they just walk aimlessly around until they get too tired. It becomes a routine like almost everything else in her life, but this one she actually likes.

A couple weeks later, however, she wakes up and everything seems different. There’s a lot more people in her room than usual and people aren’t bustling around like they usually do. They’re clustered at the end of her bed, talking quickly; half of them are looking at charts of some kind and the other half are shooting anxious looks at some machine next to her.

She looks down to see a bunch of sticky things stuck to her chest with wires all leading back to the machine beeping next to her.  _Oh. Why is she_ –?

She looks over at it, frowning, not knowing what any of the lines or numbers on it mean. She looks back at the group of people by her bed and realizes that most of them are doctors, rather than the usual cluster of nurses. Her heart sinks down to somewhere below her stomach. She starts catching phrases of things like “survival rate” and “moderate success” and she feels a panic rising up inside of her as she suddenly becomes aware of just how sick she feels. Her chest feels really tight and when she tries to take a deep breath, it actually really hurts and her eyes start to burn and she’s going to cry and she  _really_ doesn’t want to.

One of the doctors catches her frantic gaze and leans forward to whisper something to the one talking to her mum. She looks kind of sick herself and Rose almost wonders if she’s going to fall down. The doctor speaking to her looks over at Rose and she hears a few people say that she’s awake and all of a sudden people are surrounding her bed. She’s  _really_ scared now and she doesn’t know if some of them are about to touch her or take her away somewhere and then her mum is there and she’s shoving a doctor aside roughly so she can hold her hand.

“Mum?”  _Whoa_ her voice is croaking and she wonders how many hours she’s been asleep at this point. She tries to sit up and someone moves to stop her, but Jackie glares at them before resting her own hands gently against her shoulders.

“You’re okay, love. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“What’s hap…hap…happening?” The words feel wrong and her tongue feels too heavy and she frowns, looking over to see someone pulling an empty syringe away from her IV.  _Sedative_. She thinks about how bad things must be if they have to  _make_ her be calm and she feels half of her working herself up into a panic while the other feels like she’s being dragged underwater and she can’t make her way to the surface.

“You just got a little sick, Rose. It’s nothing to worry about. They know what to do. You’re going to be absolutely fine, you just need to rest, okay?”

Rose wants to argue and she wants to ask questions and she thinks she really wants to be home and back in her own bed. Her eyes are drooping already and she squeezes her mum’s hand. “‘m tired.”

“I know, sweetheart. You just sleep. I’ll be right here.”

Rose tries to nod, but she’s not sure she manages it. Her eyes finally slide closed and she thinks about cherry popsicles and running through the halls and a laugh she really likes hearing before she drifts off to sleep.

_tbc_


End file.
